Your Right to Know

All Ohio voters should continue to get absentee-ballot applications in the mail in even-numbered
years, Secretary of State Jon Husted said yesterday.

He was responding to Senate passage of a bill earlier this week that would allow such mailings
but stipulates that the General Assembly must specifically appropriate the money before the
mailings actually can go out. The proposal is now before the House.

Husted used federal money to mail the applications last year, when a third of Ohio voters cast
early ballots, and he plans to do the same for next November’s gubernatorial election.

“That’s working,” he said.

But after the 2014 vote, the federal money runs out — meaning the legislature would have to
appropriate money for future mailings anyhow, Husted said.

His remarks came after a speech before the local chapter of the Military Officers Association of
America, meeting in Berwick.

“Ohio’s election system is in the best shape it’s been in, in memory,” he told about 50 members
of the group.

He described how his office now sends out ballots electronically to military voters serving out
of state. In 2012, ballots went to troops in 35 states, 15 countries and six ships at sea. Each
gets a tracking number to check progress of the returned ballot.

In response to a question regarding voter fraud, Husted said it “is very rare, but it does
happen.” Last year, fewer than 50 cases of voter fraud statewide were referred for prosecution.

He also called on the legislature to change the law so that Ohioans can register to vote
online.

Husted parried a question about his political future, although he said he has “no desire to go
to Washington, D.C.”